Wins are a crappy stat, lowest career ERA out of all four. I don't know if I'd say he's #1 for sure, but I wouldn't dismiss him as #4 for sure either. Clemens 6 Cy Youngs and 4500+ Ks are tough to beat as well.

ulf wrote:Wins are a crappy stat, lowest career ERA out of all four. I don't know if I'd say he's #1 for sure, but I wouldn't dismiss him as #4 for sure either. Clemens 6 Cy Youngs and 4500+ Ks are tough to beat as well.

Johnson has 203 more Ks than Clemens, and Clemens pitched 2 more years than Johnson. Clemens had a better career ERA by .17. Johnson's WHIP is better by .002. Johnson averaged 2 more K/9 (Clemens had 8.6, Johnson had 10.6). Johnson's BAA was .196, while Clemens' was .207.

Clemens and Johnson were both more dominant than Maddux in terms of being able to shut teams down on their own. Pedro was awesome over a shorter period of time. If it was to win one game, I'd go with Clemens or Johnson.

MWB wrote:Mike Piazza seems to exemplify exactly what is wrong with HoF voting. He's a no doubt HoFer. Yet there are some whispers about steroid use. No smoking gun, no admission, no first hand account, no investigation. But some decide there's a chance he did, so he's out.

That was his first time on the ballot....he'll get in.

Think he eventually will. It'll just be a lot longer than it should be.

I figured Biggio and Piazza would get in. I agree with you regarding Piazza. It seems like the voters are waiting for the other shoe to drop on Piazza and they don't want to go through the headache of voting him in to find out he may have done juice.

joopen wrote:Who was the best overall player of the last 20 years? I'll say without a doubt in my mind it was Griffey Jr.

Who was the best pitcher of the last 20 years? Thats a harder discussion.

A-rod, Pujols, and Bonds would all be hard to discount.

But, by overall, I think he's talking about achievements in the field as well as in the batter's box, so I don't see how it's not Griffey then everybody else. 10 Gold Gloves.

The guys I listed are all very good to great defensive players.

I don't necessarily associate A-Rod with good fielding, but to each his own.

The only one I could really see being argued as close to Griffey in the field is Bonds, if only because he has 8 GGs as opposed to Griffey's 10. I feel like it would be a different story if they both played the same position in the same league.

Gold gloves are a bad indicator of good defense because they're often a popularity contest. A-rod would lose to Vizquel most years because he was known as a defensive wizard. Rodriguez was a very, very good shortstop. I hate him, but his all-around play for a similar time period to Griffey's is at least on par. And Bonds, yes, was better than both.

joopen wrote:Who was the best overall player of the last 20 years? I'll say without a doubt in my mind it was Griffey Jr.

Who was the best pitcher of the last 20 years? Thats a harder discussion.

A-rod, Pujols, and Bonds would all be hard to discount.

A-rod and Pujols may be as good if not better at bat but I feel Griffey offered more defensively and on the bases. Bonds is there all around but has a lot of clouds around him that Griffey does not

Griffey was better defensively, but not on the bases. Arod has 318 steals in just over 2500 games. Griffey had 184 steals in over 2600 games. I think since Arod has fallen so much and is rightfully hated, people forget how amazing he once was. It's also possible (depending on what the truth really is) that Arod had his best years pre-steroids.

As for Bonds, he had more steals with the Pirates than Griffey had in his career, by almost 50.